Activity for the week of 3 November-9 November 2004

The Weekly Volcanic Activity Report is a cooperative project between the Smithsonian's Global Volcanism Program and the US Geological Survey's Volcano Hazards Program. Updated by 2300 UTC every Wednesday, notices of volcanic activity posted on these pages are preliminary and subject to change as events are studied in more detail. This is not a comprehensive list of all of Earth's volcanoes erupting during the week, but rather a summary of activity at volcanoes that meet criteria discussed in detail in the "Criteria and Disclaimers" section. Carefully reviewed, detailed reports on various volcanoes are published monthly in the Bulletin of the Global Volcanism Network.

Ongoing Activity

During 5-7 November, block-lava flows continued to travel down Colima's N, W, NW, and S flanks as they have since 30 September. Several explosions occurred daily. By 8 November, the block-lava flows on the N flank was about 2,200 m long and about 330 m wide reaching to the N wall of the caldera. On the WNW flank, block-lava reached about 600 m long and 200 m wide at its widest point. During the report period, block-and-ash flows spilling from the fronts of the advancing block-lava flows on the W flank reached ~2 km from the summit.

During 3-5 November, avalanches of incandescent volcanic material traveled 600-800 m towards the Taniluyá and Ceniza ravines on the volcano's flanks. The avalanches originated from two areas about 20 m below the S edge of Fuego's crater. A few explosions produced low-level plumes. During an eruptive pulse beginning around 0026 on 7 November two lava flows were emitted. Avalanches occurred from the fronts of the lava flows. A ~30-m-high scoria cone was formed in the SW part of the central crater.

Lava from Kilauea's PKK flow entered the sea during the evening of 4 November. This was the first time lava had entered the sea since the Banana lava delta ceased operation in early August 2004. On the morning of 5 November, the entry was small, but vigorous. The width of the feeding lava flow was ~30 m and the new delta just starting to form seaward of the Lae`apuki delta was at most 70 m long and 8 m wide perpendicular to the shoreline. By 8 November the new lava delta was ~100 m wide along the shore and reached as far as 15 m seaward from the front of the old Lae`apuki delta. During 4-8 November, all vents in the crater of Pu`u `O`o were incandescent. Seismicity was weak at Kilauea's summit, with essentially no tremor recorded. Tremor was at moderate levels at Pu`u `O`o. No significant deformation occurred.

The Toulouse VAAC reported that an eruption began at Nyiragongo sometime earlier than 0600 on 3 November. A thin W-drifting plume was visible on satellite imagery on 3 and 4 November at a height around 3.6-4.9 km a.s.l.

On 2 November, volcanic tremor at Ruapehu increased to the highest level recorded for at least 12 months. The tremor was at moderate levels, but appeared to be declining slowly. The Volcanic Alert Level remained at 1 (some signs of volcano unrest).

During 3-8 November, weak-to-moderate explosions occurred at Santa María's Santiaguito lava-dome complex, producing gas-and-ash plumes to ~1 km above the volcano. Many explosions were accompanied by block-and-ash avalanches from the NE and SW edges of Caliente dome. The Washington VAAC reported that satellite imagery on 3 November showed a possible ash-bearing plume at a height of ~5 km a.s.l.

During 29 October to 5 November, volcanic and seismic activity at Soufrière Hills remained elevated. The seismic network recorded one rockfall, 33 hybrid earthquakes, and 39 volcano-tectonic earthquakes. The increased hybrid and volcano-tectonic activity was thought to be related to rainfall. In association with the rainfall, minor mudflow activity was recorded on 1 and 3 November. The sulfur-dioxide flux averaged about 290 metric tons per day, with a high of 440 metric tons on 30 October. An observation flight over the volcano on 4 November revealed the continued existence of standing water in the explosion pit produced by the 3 March 2004 event and no evidence of a re-start of lava-dome growth.

Elevated levels of seismicity continued to be recorded at Spurr during 29 October to 2 November. An earthquake swarm on 4 November consisted of as many as 10 shallow earthquakes per hour during a 6- to 7-hour period. After that, the level of seismicity declined to an average of 0-2 earthquakes per hour. Airborne measurements of volcanic gas from the volcano on 29 and 30 October indicated no significant change in the amount of carbon dioxide or sulfur-bearing gases compared to previous measurements in September. No unusual activity was observed on satellite or web-camera images. Spurr remained at Concern Color Code Yellow.

According to CVO, during 3-8 November, seismicity at St. Helens remained at a low level compared to early in the unrest. The seismicity during the report period was consistent with a continuing, slow rise of magma driving uplift of the crater floor and feeding a surface extrusion of lava. The overall low rates of seismicity and gas emission suggested that the lava reaching the surface was gas poor, thereby reducing the probability of highly explosive eruptions in the near term.

Fieldwork conducted on 4 November revealed that the elongated new lava dome, which extends S from the 1980-1986 lava dome, had undergone substantial vertical growth since 27 October. A new mass of dacite extruded upward as much as 100 m. Exposed rock faces had temperatures between 400 and 500 degrees Celsius, creating incandescence that could be seen from the N on clear nights. Samples of the dome were similar to those collected on 27 October and to lava erupted in the 1980s. Most dome growth was vertical, with only about 30 m of outward growth in some directions. Hot rockfalls and avalanches occurred from the steep new faces on the dome. The finer particulates from these deposits roiled upward within the steam plume to about 800 m above the crater rim. Consequently, the near S and SW flanks of the volcano received a notable dusting of ash. The thick glacial ice that forms a buttress on the S and E sides of the dome remained largely intact. All dome growth was contained within the St. Helens crater. A continuous GPS (Global Positioning System) station N of the volcano had moved to the S by about 2 cm since late September or early October. Aerial observations on 7 November revealed that the new lava dome continued to expand and move upward. Small aprons of rockfall debris accumulated at several sites around the new dome. CVO stated that some ash emissions may be caused by these rockfalls as collapsing hot dome lava disintegrates into smaller fragments. St. Helens remained at Volcano Advisory (Alert Level 2); aviation color code Orange.

Volcanic and seismic activity at Tungurahua during 4-7 November were at relatively low levels, characterized by a few long-period earthquakes and small explosions. Emissions mainly consisted of steam, gas, and small amounts of ash.

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Criteria & Disclaimers

Criteria

The Weekly Volcanic Activity Report does not necessarily include all volcanic activity that occurred on Earth during the week. More than a dozen volcanoes globally have displayed more-or-less continuous eruptive activity for decades or longer, and such routine activity is typically not reported here. Moreover, Earth's sea-floor volcanism is seldom reported even though in theory it represents the single most prolific source of erupted material. The Weekly Volcanic Activity Report summarizes volcanic activity that meets one or more of the following criteria:

- A volcano observatory raises or lowers the alert level at the volcano.
- A volcanic ash advisory has been released by a volcanic ash advisory center (VAAC) stating that an ash cloud has been produced from the volcano.
- A verifiable news report of new activity or a change in activity at the volcano has been issued.
- Observers have reported a significant change in volcanic activity. Such activity can include, but is not restricted to, pyroclastic flows, lahars, lava flows, dome collapse, or increased unrest.

Volcanoes are included in the "New Activity/Unrest" section of the Weekly Volcanic Activity Report if the activity occurs after at least 3 months of quiescence. Once a volcano is included in the "New Activity/Unrest" section, updates will remain in that section unless the activity continues for more than 1 month without escalating, after which time updates will be listed in the "Continuing Activity" section. Volcanoes are also included in the "New Activity/Unrest" section if the volcano is undergoing a period of relatively high unrest, or increasing unrest. This is commonly equal to Alert Level Orange on a scale of Green, Yellow, Orange, Red, where Red is the highest alert. Or alert level 3 on a scale of 1-4 or 1-5.

It is important to note that volcanic activity meeting one or more of these criteria may occur during the week, but may not be included in the Weekly Volcanic Activity Report because we did not receive a report.

Disclaimers

1. The Weekly Volcanic Activity Report is intended to provide timely information about global volcanism on a weekly basis. Consequently, the report is generated rapidly by summarizing volcanic reports from various sources, with little time for fact checking. The accuracy of the Weekly Volcanic Activity Report is dependent upon the quality of the volcanic activity reports we receive. Reports published in the Bulletin of the Global Volcanism Network are monthly, and more carefully reviewed, although all of the volcanoes discussed in the Weekly Volcanic Activity Report are not necessarily reported in the Bulletin. Because of our emphasis on rapid reporting on the web we have avoided diacritical marks. Reports are updated on the Weekly Volcanic Activity Report web page as they are received, therefore information may be included regarding events that occurred before the current report period.

2. Rapidly developing events lead to coverage that is often fragmentary. Volcanoes, their eruptions, and their plumes and associated atmospheric effects are complex phenomena that may require months to years of data analysis in order to create a comprehensive summary and interpretation of events.

3. Preliminary accounts sometimes contain exaggerations and "false alarms," and accordingly, this report may include some events ultimately found to be erroneous or misleading.

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An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed for the Weekly Volcanic Activity Report first made available on 5 March 2008 can be utilized with the aid of various free downloadable readers. The report content of the news feed is identical to the Weekly Volcanic Activity Report minus some features including the header information (latitude and longitude and summit elevation), the Geologic Summary, and a link to the volcano's page from the Global Volcanism Program. Each volcano report includes a link from the volcano's name back to the more complete information in the Weekly Volcanic Activity Report on the Smithsonian website. On 12 March 2009, GeoRSS tags were added so that the latitude and longitude for each volcano could be included with the feed.

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A Google Earth network link for the Weekly Volcanic Activity Report was first made available on 1 April 2009. This file can be loaded into the free Google Earth software, and in turn will load placemarks for volcanoes in the current weekly report. Placemark balloons include the volcano name, report date, report text, sources, and links back to the GVP volcano page for that volcano and to the complete Weekly Report for that week.